eSports Betting Website Guide and Review

E-Sports have been taking over the gaming world, allowing the best gamers to face off in a show of skill, reflexes and teamwork across various game types. It opens the door to worldwide playing, regardless of where players are located, and can encompass any game that allows players to be competitive. As part of the e-sport system, there are gambling sites that allow viewers to take part by putting wagers on who they think is going to win (much like physical sports, like football and basketball).

Most Popular Games Supported

While most games can be supported under e-sports betting, there are only a few that are widely accepted. These include:

StarCraft 2

Counter-Strike and CS:GO

DOTA 2

League of Legends

Hearthstone

Smite

All of the above have professional gamers, as well as events that encompass both local and world circuits. Essentially, these are all treated like the major sports we’re all used to from television. World championships are televised, and matches in all of these games can be streamed, recorded in full, and watched at any time by players, bettors and spectators alike, bringing together a truly 100% transparent system for handling e-sports and e-sports betting, with no boundary based on location or time.

How to Get Started Betting on E-Sports

Getting up and running with e-sports betting is quick and easy. Just follow these steps!

Explore the available games, listed above, to find one of interest

Visit one of the more reputable e-sports betting sites (overviews of a few of the top ones are in the next section)

Sign up and create a new account

Make a deposit to the site (they offer multiple methods to do so, giving flexibility in deposits)

Explore the available games and teams

(Recommended) pick a game and do some research into both teams. Videos can be found through quick Google searches and YouTube, making it possible to watch their effectiveness in previous matches. While not a guarantee, it does help give more information on how likely they are to win future matches

Pick the team that seems most likely to win and put in a bet

(Optional) watch the game live, if possible, to see what’s happening in real-time. If not possible, it doesn’t impact the chances of winning the bet – it does, however, feed more information to use in the future when betting

(Hopefully) collect winnings when the match is done

Repeat the steps to bet on another game or withdraw winnings (again, there are multiple ways to withdraw funds, to help make it more convenient)

It’s important to note just how much information watching previous matches can grant. Unlike normal sports, the e-sports are recorded in their entirety, from the games themselves, so nothing is missed. This means the viewer can see anything the players can, including strengths, weaknesses, and strategies. Use this to an advantage!

DraftKings is a major e-sports betting site that offers a large number of different tournaments and great rewards. Just in the year 2015, they are set to pay out over $1 billion in prizes, giving the site huge potential for bettors. With a strong promotion (100% deposit bonus) and many different tournament payout styles to choose from, it’s a great choice for anyone that wants to take part in e-sports betting. And to make things even better, a solid VIP program ensures that each bet contributes to a point system that can be redeemed for prizes (like apparel, merchandise, and entry to paid tournaments at no cost). Match this up with quick deposits via all major credit cards and PayPal, as well as quick withdrawals (as few as 2 days), and it’s quick and easy to get up and running with betting as well. For those that want to take part and try to win some money but don’t want to risk anything in the process, tournaments range from completely free to high stakes, ensuring there is something for everyone, including those that want to work their way from the bottom of the ladder to the top, getting increased payouts along the way. Last but not least, their support is very responsive, and is available all throughout the day via email, giving a great user experience for a well laid out and organized e-sports betting site.

AlphaDraft is a site that pays out over $300k a week in prizes, covering League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, Hearthstone, and Smite. It covers fantasy drafts, allowing players to create their own team and compete against other players to see whose team does the best. AlphaDraft not only has high-paying games that players can pay to take part in, but also comes with free games (with smaller pots for the winners), giving the ability to practice for free before risking money on the games. And upon making a deposit, there is a first deposit bonus of up to $250, increasing the amount of play (and giving more chances to come ahead!).

Deposits can be made to AlphaDraft using credit cards or PayPal, with the minimum deposit being $10 and the maximum being $600. When making a deposit, there is also a notice as to how much will be added as part of the first deposit bonus, which is 30% of the total amount. And best of all is AlphaDraft comes with a guarantee: if you dislike the site after your first league, they will give a 100% refund, essentially making the site a risk-free experience for the first game played. Click here for our Review of AlphaDraft.

Pinnacle Sports offers e-sports betting for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, DOTA 2, and League of Legends. It comes with the same setup most sports betting sites have, including both handicaps and money lines, allowing players to customize their own bets according to how they feel. Along with this, they include multiple different leagues, encompassing many games in the e-sports arena.

Deposits can be made to Pinnacle Sports through a variety of methods, including ClickandBuy, Visa, MasterCard, EntroPay, iDebit, InstaDebit, Moneta, Neteller, Qiwi Wallet, Skrill, and WebMoney. Minimum and maximum deposits range from $10 to $50k, depending on the processor, and almost all of them can be used for withdrawals as well. Click here to read a Detailed Review of Pinnacle Sports.

Nitrogen Sports

Nitrogen Sports is a widely known e-sports betting site, covering StarCraft, StarCraft 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and DOTA2. It’s quick and easy to get up and running with, and allows for viewing all upcoming games, as well as those that are starting soon. Creating a bet slip is as simple as picking a game and wager, where they can be bet on as a one-off, parlay, or teaser. And with a major casino backing the e-sports betting, it’s a safe and secure way to get involved. For those that are interested in placing wagers but don’t want to share any personal information, Nitrogen Sports automatically creates anonymous accounts when first visited, and does not require the addition of a username, password or email address in order to deposit, bet or withdraw.

EGB (E-Gaming Bets)

EGB offers a fully-featured system for making wagers on e-sports, which has been around for over 3 years. They support betting on StarCraft 2, Counter-Strike, and League of Legends, and they make it quick and easy to view live e-sports, allowing bettors to watch the action in real-time.

For bettors that want to chat with other like-minded people, EGB offers a live chat, letting everyone discuss the current events, strategize on bets (and analyze each other’s predictions), and more. It’s pretty active, too, usually having over 1000 players (and often having significantly more).

To make things even better for potential players, there is a 100% first deposit bonus of up to $600, giving even more incentive to give them a try.

Vulcun goes outside of the normal e-sports betting by setting up a system where bettors can put a wager down on a fantasy team. It supports Call of Duty, Hearthstone, DOTA 2, League of Legends, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and comes with pretty large prize pools (and over $6 million paid out to bettors as of this writing). It’s quick to get registered, allows deposits through multiple mediums, and gives a great way for bettors to put their prediction skills to work (and make money doing it!).

For those that are interested in the straight e-sports betting, this is also offered, but in a slightly different method than normal. Rather than betting against the house, bets are against each other. Essentially, all bets for and against a team are put into a pool. The winning pool then splits to all winners, based on the proportion of each of their bets. For example, if there are 10 players that each bet 10, and one player that bet 100, the last player would get 50% of the winnings and the rest would each get 5% each. The end result is that it gives greater rewards, especially as wagers are put down on the less favorite teams. And for bettors that aren’t sure who they should bet on, this is fully transparent, giving a strong view of who the community, as a whole, believes is going to win the match.

Why Bet On E-Sports?

E-sports have become a big deal when it comes to gamers. Most of the games supported require quick thinking, problem solving skills, and strong devotion to teamwork (and a team that also meshes well together). It also has a very large pool of players and teams from all over the world, all competing in different capacities, going all the way up from local matches to world championships, which bring the best of the best together for professional competition. E-sports have a low barrier to entry, only requiring that players get good at a game. Compared to things like NFL and NBA, this is huge, as it opens the doors for anyone to give it a shot, getting better through practice. And because it’s location-agnostic, it doesn’t even matter where the players or teams are located – all it takes is an Internet connection to get involved and test their mettle.

Dynamic Teams From Event to Event

One of the biggest things that makes e-sports different from normal sports is that teams are dynamic. With the NFL and NBA, for example, the teams are pretty much the same from year to year (teams could drop and join these leagues, but it’s a rare occurrence). With e-sports, however, new players are always joining, forming new teams, and old ones are breaking up. As a result, no two events are the same, and this leads to a very different atmosphere when it comes to making wagers. Despite a team being new, for example, it could be comprised of professional veterans, or it could be newer players that aren’t quite up to par with the players that have been around a lot longer.

It is worth noting that it is entirely possible to follow a team through various championships, all the way from the local circuits on up, should they play in all of these. As such, it does share some similarities to normal sports betting. That said, variance is somewhat large when it comes to the tournaments.

Watching From Anywhere

Normal sports can only be seen from television or being at the event in person. With e-sports, however, matches can be streamed live, seen on television, watched live where they’re being played, or even seen through recorded matches on various websites and mediums. This enables viewers to watch while mobile, analyze matches, and more, giving full insight into how the teams are performing and how well they work together. Normal sports are based on either what is being shown by the cameras or what can be seen in person, which is significantly more limited than an omnificent recording.